Bunny business

Vincent Gallo surpassed even himself with a vicious Venice parting shot. His 13-minute film, The Agent, consisted of a young agent shouting at the off-camera Gallo for most of its run time: "You're a prick, you're a fucking prick." The end credits then flashed up, and a disclaimer greeted with gasps by the assembled (rather small) audience: "This film was brought to you by The Gray Daisy Foundation, a viewer-supported organisation dedicated to the advancement of outspoken Caucasion (sic) non-Jewish heterosexual good-looking male film-makers and movie stars." That agent was right.

Quelle trouvaille

One of the most striking performances of Venice came from Yahima Torres, a first-time actress hailing from Cuba who took the title role in Abdellatif Kechiche's Black Venus. Kechiche told me he opened the front door of his home in where he lives in the Belleville district of Paris and spotted her. "She was right in front of me, a beautiful princess," he says. "I was looking for my Venus and I couldn't start the film without her, and there she was. I just had to ask her." Torres was living as an illegal immigrant. I gather her papers are now all in order - she is certainly a star.

The Trash Venezia awards

Best actor Paul Giamatti, Barney's Version

Best actress Yahima Torres, Black Venus; Catherine Deneuve, Potiche

Best dialogue from Tom Tykwer's Drei. He: "My Grandmother always said you Austrians were the best Nazis of all." She: "Everyone has to be good at something."

Best music Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante played by Israeli musicians Avri Levitan and Roi Shiloach in Douglas Gordon's k.364.

Overheard As rainwater poured into the Sala Perla during screening of The Town – "Is that Joaquin Phoenix taking a leak by that bush? Oh no, it's actually a tramp."

Spotted: Vincent Gallo, after days holed up in his hotel room, sneaking into a screening in a baseball cap with his sweater pulled up in front of his face, looking around nervously as if to say: don't look at me, stop looking at me, look at me, why aren't you looking at me...